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The Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, also known as the SPS Agreement, is an international treaty of the World Trade Organization. It was negotiated during the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and entered into force with the establishment of the WTO at the beginning of 1995.〔Timothy J. Miano, ("Understanding and Applying International Infectious Disease Law: U.N. Regulations During an H5N1 Avian Flu Epidemic" ) 6 Chi-Kent J. Int'l & Comp. L. 26, 42-48 (2006).〕 Broadly, the sanitary and phytosanitary (‘SPS’) measures covered by the agreement are those aimed at the protection of human, animal or plant life or health from certain risks.〔Peter Van den Bossche and Werner Zdouc, The Law and Policy of the World Trade Organization: Text, Cases and Materials (Cambridge University Press, 2013) 834.〕 Under the SPS agreement, the WTO sets constraints on member-states' policies relating to food safety (bacterial contaminants, pesticides, inspection and labelling) as well as animal and plant health (phytosanitation) with respect to imported pests and diseases. There are 3 standards organizations who set standards that WTO members should base their SPS methodologies on. As provided for in Article 3, they are the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex), World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the Secreatariat of the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC). The treaty targets ‘scientifically unfounded’ barriers to trade disguised as health and safety regulations.〔Robert Cunningham, ‘The ABC of GMOs, SPS & the WTO: An analysis of the application of the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures within the context of biotechnology and international trade’, (2005) 9 Australian Southern Cross University Law Review,19-37, 24.〕 The SPS agreement is closely linked to the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, which was signed in the same year and has similar goals. The TBT Emerged from the Tokyo Round of WTO negotiations and was negotiated with the aim of ensuring non-discrimination in the adoption and implementation of technical regulations and standards.〔Kasturi Das, ‘Coping with SPS Challenges in India: WTO and Beyond’, (2008) 11(4) Journal of International Economic Law, 971-1019, 973-974, 973〕 ==History and Framework of the SPS Agreement== As GATT’s preliminary focus had been lowering tariffs, the framework that preceded the SPS Agreement was not adequately equipped to deal with the problems of non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to trade and the need for an independent agreement addressing this became critical.〔Das, ‘Coping with SPS Challenges in India: WTO and Beyond’,973-974.〕 The SPS Agreement is an ambitious attempt to deal with NTBs arising from cross-national differences in technical standards without diminishing governments prerogative to implement measures to guard against diseases and pests.〔Tim Buthe, ‘The globalization of health and safety standards: delegation of regulatory authority in the SPS Agreement of the 1994 agreement establishing the World Trade Organization’ (2008) 71(1) Law and Contemporary Problems, 219-255〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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